Your Right to Know

WASHINGTON — The testimony of nine military officers undermines contentions by Republican
lawmakers that a “stand-down order” held back military assets that could have saved the U.S.
ambassador and three other Americans killed at a diplomatic outpost and CIA annex in Benghazi,
Libya.

The “stand-down” theory centers on a Special Operations team of four — a detachment leader, a
medic, a communication expert and a weapons operator with his foot in a cast — who were stopped
from flying from Tripoli to Benghazi after the attack of Sept. 11-12, 2012, had ended.

Instead, they were instructed to help protect those being evacuated from Benghazi and from the
U.S. Embassy in Tripoli.

The senior military officer who issued the instruction to “remain in place” and the detachment
leader who received it said it was the right decision and has been widely mischaracterized.

The order was to remain in Tripoli and protect three dozen embassy personnel rather than fly to
Benghazi 600 miles away after all Americans there would have been evacuated.

Transcripts of hours of closed-door interviews with the military leaders by the House Armed
Services and Oversight and Government Reform committees were made public for the first time on
Wednesday.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., chairman of the oversight panel, has suggested that Hillary Clinton
gave the order, though as secretary of state she was not in the military chain of command.

The initial Sept. 11 assault on the diplomatic post prompted immediate action both in Benghazi
and in Tripoli. The U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, was evacuated early Sept. 12,and
its sensitive information and computer hard drives were destroyed.

Diplomats and military officials left in armored vehicles for a classified U.S. site several
miles away. Upon arrival there, the head of a small detachment entrusted with training Libyan
special forces told his higher-ups he wanted to take his four-member team to Benghazi.

Military officials agree that no help could have arrived in Benghazi in time.

Beyond questions of timing, the testimony of Rear Adm. Brian Losey, who was then Special
Operations commander for Africa, also challenged the idea that the team had the capacity to bolster
security in Benghazi.

Losey said there was “never an order to stand down.” His instruction to the team “was to remain
in place and continue to provide security in Tripoli because of the uncertain environment.”

Losey questioned what the four could have done to aid the situation in Benghazi. He said
assigning the small team to defend a perimeter wouldn’t have been appropriate and would have meant
the military losing its command operation in Tripoli “for the benefit of four riflemen who weren’t
even riflemen.”

Lt. Col. S.E. Gibson has been identified as the detachment’s leader. Gibson agreed that staying
in Tripoli was the best decision.

“It was not a stand-down order,” he testified in March. “It was, you know, ‘Don’t go. Don’t get
on that plane. Remain in place.’

“Initially, I was angry,” Gibson said. “A tactical commander doesn’t like to have those
decisions taken away from him. But then, once I digested it a little bit, then I realized, OK,
maybe there was something else that was going on. Maybe I’m needed here for something else.”

His contingent would indeed prove useful in Tripoli, according to the testimonies.

When the Americans from Benghazi arrived, among the wounded was one person with a unique blood
type. Gibson and others credited the medic in their team with saving a life.